Production InformationNecessity proved to be
the "father" of invention when a screenwriter in between assignments
used his stay-at-home-dad experiences as the inspiration for Revolution Studios'
new family comedy Daddy Day Care starring Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin,
Steve Zahn, Regina King and Anjelica Huston, as well as a lovable bunch of
four-year-old scene stealers.

"At the time, I
was home watching my seven-month-old son because my wife had gone back to work
full time," says Daddy Day Care scribe Geoff Rodkey. "As much
as I loved him, I really didn't want to be spending all my waking hours taking
care of him. I was talking to (producer) Wyck Godfrey, who also had small kids
at home. We both decided that the idea of dads caring for kids was the perfect
comic premise and I spent the next year working on it."

One of the veins to be
mined in the situation, Godfrey mentions, "is the way men play with kids
when their wives are not watching. It's chaos. Somehow it brings us back to
our own childhoods."

According to executive
producer Joe Roth, "Outside of the corporate world, these fathers are not
in their element, and all of their training and experience doesn't mean a
thing when they have to deal with a group of out-of-control
four-year-olds."

Rodkey also touched on
a subject that has never been addressed in movies, according to producer John
Davis. "Most dads are fine with their kids when they're a little older,
but we don't always know what to do with them when they're three or four
years old," says Davis. "There's an inherent absurdity to having
dads run a day care center that naturally makes it very funny. These guys don't
have a clue what they're getting themselves into."

When the idea was
conceived, Godfrey admits it sounded a bit far-fetched. But times have changed.
"While we were developing the script the economy was on fire. We wondered
how we could convince the audience that these two talented guys (Murphy and
Garlin) would be laid off and not able to find work," he recalls. "By
the time we were shooting the film, thousands of guys had lost their jobs and
were home taking care of the kids."

As with such classic
comedies as Mr. Mom and Three Men and a Baby, Eddie Murphy
immediately saw the comedy potential in Daddy Day Care. "Whenever
you take some guys who aren't used to nurturing and you see them go through
that process of trying to be as good as a mom," says Murphy, "humor
just comes out of those situations naturally."

And like those movies,
Murphy saw the potential for some genuine sweetness. "When Eddie appears in
a movie that's aimed at a young audience, a charm emerges that blends with his
comedy style in a unique way," says producer Davis, who worked with Murphy
on the Dr. Dolittle films. "Only a person who genuinely loves kids
the way Eddie does can bring that across so effectively."

"Working with kids
is all about reacting because they're so spontaneous and always doing the
unexpected," says Roth. "And no one's better at reacting than
Eddie."

Director Steve Carr
first watched Murphy respond to talking animals in Dr. Dolittle 2.
"There was family stuff in the movie and I noticed ho